I jam the powder down the barrel, and then add some hay. I stand, pick up a cannonball and heave it in. Then I turn the wheels and aim the barrel at forty-five degrees.

Ready?

Ready.

I light the fuse; crouch down with my hands over my ears.

BANG!

BOOM!

BA—

‘Felix! Felix!’

‘What? Where? When—’ My head scrambles back. ‘Mum! How did you get there?’

‘Walked of course. What did you think?’ Mum’s at the base of the tree with a pizza box in her hand.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ I say, trying to shake all the problems and the cannons and the soldiers out of my head.

‘Just come home and eat this.’

‘Can’t I eat it up here?’

‘No, me and your dad have something we want to discuss with you.’

‘What is it? I didn’t get sent out of class today.’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Have you spoken to Granddad then? I didn’t mean to—’

‘Felix!’ Mum snaps. ‘I’m not going to talk about it while you’re up in the tree. Just eat this.’

‘So I can eat it up here?’

‘Yes! I’m too tired to argue,’ she sighs. ‘But then come straight home.’ She places the pizza box against the tree and walks away.

I look across at Granddad’s house. I wonder if he’s snitched on me and told Mum I stormed out. But I don’t know how he could, because he’s not gone over to ours and he hates using the phone as he thinks anyone could be listening in.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Jake running across the grass towards me like a bloodhound, with his hair flopping up and down on his head. He can smell pizza from miles away.

‘All right?’ He grins up at me. ‘I’m starving.’ Jake stuffs the pizza box up his sweatshirt as I throw the rope over the side.

‘Have the enemy advanced?’ he asks as he climbs. ‘Ouch! This pizza’s burning through my belly!’ He throws the box ahead, then scrambles onto the platform.

‘How was it at your granddad’s?’

He said I’ve got problems.

‘Just the usual,’ I say. ‘Did some classwork, watched German TV.’

‘God, that is dull!’

‘Then he tried to make me read and I stormed out.’

‘Don’t blame you for getting out of there. That place gives me the creeps!’ He looks across at my granddad’s house. ‘Why do you reckon he does it?’

‘What?’

Jake chews on pizza. ‘Your granddad. Why do you reckon he keeps his curtains closed?’

I shrug and break off a piece of pizza.

‘My mum says it’s because he’s depressed after your gran died,’ says Jake.

‘Don’t think so. He did it when she was alive. Grandma used to say it was like living in a chapel of rest, whatever that is.’